Impact of Cooperative Learning on Performance of Business Education Students in Economics in Plateau State Secondary Schools

This study investigated the impact of cooperative learning on the academic performance of Business Education students in Economics in senior secondary schools in Plateau State, North Central Nigeria. Economics is a core subject in the Business Education curriculum, yet student performance in both internal examinations and the West African Senior School Certificate Examination has remained consistently below average in Plateau State. Cooperative learning, as an evidence-based instructional strategy, offers a collaborative alternative to teacher-centered approaches. However, its impact in the specific context of Business Education in Plateau State has not been adequately studied. A quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest control group structure was employed. The population comprised 800 SS2 Economics students in ten government secondary schools in Jos North and Barkin Ladi local government areas. Eighty students were selected through purposive and random sampling and divided equally into experimental and control groups. A validated Economics Achievement Test was used as the pretest and posttest instrument. Analysis of Covariance was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses. The results reveal that students in the cooperative learning group achieved significantly higher scores than those in the conventional group. The study recommends that Economics teachers in Plateau State should adopt cooperative learning structures such as jigsaw and think-pair-share as standard instructional approaches in Business Education classrooms. Keywords: cooperative learning, economics, academic performance, business education, Plateau State